Risk assessment method for lightning strikes on wind turbine blades

To study the probability of lightning strikes on wind turbines (WTs), this paper proposes a new method for evaluating WT lightning protection efficiency. It establishes a lightning strike distance formula based on lightning current and receptor height, then determines the attractive areas of WT blades. The rate of lightning attachment of a single blade (LASB) and the rate of lightning interception between multi blades (LIMB) is calculated by using exposed line segments and shielding arcs. We observed that for a single blade, higher lightning current and smaller rotation angles increase LASB; lightning current affects LIMB similarly to LASB. The rotation angle, influenced by the relative position of the multi blades and the lightning strike distance, affects the interception rate between the blades and with the increase of l v , both LASB and LIMB have shown significant improvement. This method provides theoretical support for WT lightning protection assessment.